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For more information on Nashville Girl Geek Dinner, visit http://ggdnashville.com. In addition to regular dinners, the group is planning other formats to help those in the industry build a network and develop skills. For example, Code+Pinot, a night of programming and favorite wines, is on the agenda for 6-8 p.m. Feb.19 at Emma.

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When three Nashville women launched the first Girl Geek Dinner last month offering career insights to women in the tech industry, the event sold out within hours, with 50 people signing up and 32 making it to the wait list.

The demand highlights the city’s quickly growing community of coders and programmers, but also an interest among young women to build a network within the tech circles of Nashville.

“People are hungry for a place where they can not only have a good time, but be around other young women who are really excited about what’s happening in technology,” said co-organizer Kristin McKinney.

The Nashville chapter of Girl Geek Dinners is designed to encourage women in tech jobs and offer education on tech-related topics that include the business side and the programming side of the profession. For example, the first dinner featured a panel of software engineers at various levels in their careers who discussed how to build a brand and gain credibility.

The organizers are quick to emphasize the events are not just for women. Men are welcome and encouraged to attend. But, by creating it as “Girl Geek Dinners,” it sends the message that the event is a welcoming environment and that women won’t be in the minority, as they are at many tech meetups and user groups.

Co-organizer Rachel Werner and Lisa French, who hosted the event at Moontoast, described going to hackathons or meetups and being among few or no other women in the room. Both saw the benefit of creating a group targeting women, especially for those early in their programming careers. French also created the Nashville Women Programmers group that meets on weekends.

“There are a lot of women like me who are new to this type of career,” said French, a front-end engineer at Moontoast. “They didn’t get those messages when they were younger that this is something they could do. They are coming at it later in life and are on a beginning level. … People are hungry for education and are interested in knowing what they can do with this path.”

Girl Geek Dinners was created in London in 2005 by software engineer and consultant Sarah Lamb and has more than 50 chapters worldwide. Lamb created the network after growing tired of justifying her presence at other predominantly male tech meetups.

Werner, a student at the Nashville Software School, discovered the (San Francisco) Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners last year while searching for local tech communities. After six years working in the music industry and making websites for bands as a side job, she had decided to pursue her software interest full time. She bought the domain name for a Nashville Girl Geek Dinner in April and worked with McKinney to create the Nashville chapter.

Similarly, French entered the profession after working in marketing. Seeing the role of social media growing within marketing, she recognized the opportunities in programming and realized there was no good reason why she, too, couldn’t enter the field. So she left her job and enrolled in the Nashville Software School. When asked why she hadn’t considered the profession previously, she said, “I never saw people like me in this field.”

Beyond the education component, getting to hear from leading women in tech about their career paths is useful to those entering it for that reason, Werner said.

“Role models are a big part of it,” Werner said. “You pick a career based off who you admire. It’s always been a boys club, so having more women in it could lead to more women doing it.”